Linden Hills

by Gloria Naylor

  Her eyes flew open and she stared down at the Bible in her lap. Trembling, she went back to reread the entry between the books of Genesis and Exodus.

  Luther has given me a strange ring. I am not partial to the pale metal because it is barely visible against my skin. In jest I told him that people will think he could not afford gold and so had welded our bond with silver. I was going to amend his peculiar reply that nothing welds our bond but his will, but something in his eyes hindered me. Surely he understands that our marriage is bonded in heaven through God’s grace. I suspect I will grow accustomed to this color, but truly in the full sunlight, it is as if I wear no ring. We are going north in a fortnight to a place called Linden Hills. I leave this state with rejoicing. A new land. A new life.

  It was becoming painfully clear. Her two wedding bands. The one she wore was red gold with a deep antique finish that almost matched the color of the finger it had been slipped on. But the other had been platinum. Tradition, he had said. It belonged to my mother. Keep it where you will, but never wear it. And she hadn’t, thinking it was so precious to him he was afraid she might lose it. She couldn’t see her wedding ring in the shadow that her body cast on her hand: “It is as if I wear no ring.” Then what had happened six years ago? Was she so busy being needed that it never dawned on her she wasn’t being married?

  She now had the key to Luwana Packerville’s buried memories. Using these ancient records as signposts, the woman had found at least one place that could offer an anchor of validity to the inner flow of her life. Her bewilderment over the rules he had given her about housekeeping and his diet before Leviticus; the sorrows of never knowing her own mother next to the Book of Ruth; her fears of being a new bride before the Song of Solomon. She had read and known this Bible well. And so the entry carefully placed between First Kings and Second Kings had been no accident:

  The child was weaned last month. He was well past two and could now take solid food without harm. Now Luther has taken him to the solicitor today. There is the matter of his will and other documents to be settled. He told me to prepare a special supper because, when he returns, he wants to celebrate his son’s manumission. Since the law decrees that a child must follow the condition of its mother, I know he has gone to have the solicitor draw up free papers for the baby. This is the final humiliation. But I have enough pride not to beg him to manumit me as well. It is a small matter since I could go nowhere and would go nowhere—this is my home. Yet it still bears on me grievously. And if the love of God and all that is right cannot move this man, how can I hope to? So it is a bitter meal that I must cook to help celebrate the fact that I am now to be owned by my own son.

  All of the tissued dividers between the long line of Hebrew prophets from Ezekiel to Malachai were left untouched. There seemed to be nothing that Luwana Packerville could find to guide her in almost four hundred years of proclamations by these iron men of God. She found the fading handwriting again on the page before the New Testament:

  There has been a sharp turn of events. This week a new housekeeper came to cook for us and do the washing. I was pressed beyond endurance to voice a protest. After ten years, I do not wish a strange woman preparing my meals and handling my things. I have little enough to do as it is—the child is constantly with his father, and with no friends or relatives to visit me, the days drag on so. Luther told me that I was foolish and should be proud that he was now set enough to afford such services for me. But I know it is not for me, because last week the papers told of a woman in Tennessee who was hanged for poisoning her master’s soup, and Luther seemed much agitated over the account. When declaring that I would refuse to eat whatever this despicable woman seasoned in my kitchen, I was told that was my choice, but he and the child would eat from her hands. Yesterday I baked some molasses cakes. They were always my son’s favorites; but he refused to touch them, though I saw he was sorely tempted. And when I labored to press them on him, the look he finally cast me chilled my blood. I know what is behind all this and it breaks my heart. I have heard him and his father whispering.

  There was silence throughout the four gospels and it was impossible to tell how many years had passed before the entry in front of the Acts of the Apostles.

  I wish I had learned to sew when my mistress in Tupelo pressed me. But I found sitting still with nothing but scraps and threads to entertain my mind overbearing. I persisted in hunting up new dewberry patches and wandering the fields in search of fresh mint. The warm, buttered cobblers that sprang from my sojourns always softened her irritation over my neglected needle, but now I am paying for my obstinacy. Without my garden, the long winter months are intolerable here, and reading is now my sole pleasure. It seems so unjust that I am barred from having friends among the white wives because of my husband’s color and among the colored because of his wealth. If there were only something to do or someone to receive my thoughts so they won’t fester within me. God forgive me, but I am so envious of the holy apostles. They all had each other and whole congregations to write to. And it must have been wonderful to know that someone was awaiting their messages and that if they did not write, they would be missed. I write to no one and am missed by no one on this earth. Since I was brought from a place where I had no mother or father, no sister to call my own, to whom could I send my blessings for good heath, God’s faith, love—and from whom could I receive them? I am just being foolish again. Here, preserved for all time, are the wonderful letters of our holy men trumpeting their joy and faith in our Saviour for thirsty hearts throughout the ages. I should drink of them and rejoice. But sometimes I do indeed wonder what it is like to have someone to care about what you will say.

  My Dear Luwana,

  I am writing to you, my sister, because I must have someone to help me bear these trials. Is it a sin to wish for death when there are so many who would long to have all that I do? I know you must think that I am an ungrateful creature. For fifteen years I have never had to worry about hunger or nakedness or cold like so many of our brethren. I am free to come and go as I please and no one cares. But that is the problem, my dear—I feel as if I could leave this world tomorrow and no one in this house would miss me. With each year, the housekeeper takes on more and more of my responsibilities and I was so tired of my entreaties falling on deaf ears, I let Luther have his way.

  I only managed to save my garden from the hands of some vile outsider by flinging myself on the ground in the yard and refusing to be moved. Yes, I screamed like a banshee at the feet of Luther and the new gardener, threatening to water the soil with my blood if I could no longer tend the flowers in it. I am sure you understand that I was driven to such disgraceful conduct because once my roses are taken away, I would have absolutely nothing since my son has become a stranger to me. And there are to be no more children as my bed belongs only to me. The child I had hoped to be a refuge for all the love I have to give grows more like his father with each breath and the two are now inseparable. And what is worse, they are becoming inseparable in my mind. I thus live with two Luthers in truth, and so I live alone.

  Please tell me if there is something that I can do to shed these horrible shadows on my soul. I want so badly to rejoice in my blessings. I know I have neglected you shamefully over these years but if it is not asking too much, perhaps you can take a few moments and just remind me of all I have to be grateful for.

  God’s Speed,

  Luwana

  The tears that now stood in her eyes weren’t from the strain of trying to decipher the fine scrawl. She could feel more of them gathering at the pit of her stomach and ebbing up toward her throat and the back of her eyes in gentle waves for the answers she would never get to the letters that hadn’t been sent, the phone calls that hadn’t been made. She had tried at first but there was less and less to talk about: their new job—her new baby. Their problems with finding a decent landlord—her problems with finding decent silverplate. What they heard the governor say about new tax shelters—what Luther said about it
. What they heard Congress say about automobile regulations—what Luther said about it. What they heard the president say about the ERA—what Luther said about it. I called you to see how you were—oh, we’re doing fine. Yes, all those lonely luncheon partners would never miss her now since she had been dead to them for years.

  And she wouldn’t have had the courage to send a letter like this to anyone. They would have pitied her and she had tolerated their pity long enough before she became Mrs. Luther Nedeed. And how could they ever believe that she was lonely when we just had a baby, and we were going to the Cape for a week, and we were about to renovate the attic? And how could she have even believed it herself—and she hadn’t until she realized that Luwana Packerville could never get an answer to that letter. But there was an answer waiting on the page before the book of Romans.

  My Dearest Luwana,

  Your words grieved me sorely, my sister, and I am trying to understand what you are going through. But there must be great consolation in the fact that you are at last mistress of your own home. Remember how vexed you would be when Mistress Packerville kept you trotting hour by hour on such trivial errands while she sat on her divan. And she would even call you from the pantry while your hands were smeared with dough to hand her a thimble that was barely two feet away. Well, now you have that luxury, so rejoice.

  I know you are disturbed by the papers your husband still keeps after all these years, but in truth you are no longer a servant. And since this man asks nothing of you, I cannot imagine what is pressing you so. I can understand that it is difficult to watch a child grow up and finally away from a mother’s arms. But all children must grow.

  Of course I shall be more than happy to receive letters from you. It is lonely for me as well. Take heart, together we can weather these tiny tempests that blow through a woman’s world.

  Fondly,

  Luwana

  My Dear Luwana,

  Thank you for being so prompt in your reply. It was gratifying finally to receive a little encouragement from someone who has known me as long and as well as you. You are truly a gift from the God I was beginning to doubt. I tend to forget the small vexations that I suffered under Mistress Packerville because they pale in the light of the good she rendered me. You know I would not have learned to read or have knowledge of the grace of our Saviour were it not for her. I have not set foot in a church since I was a new bride. There is only one church in this county for the colored people, and Luther had a quarrel with the minister in the first month of our marriage and I have not been able to attend since. That may have given me some source of comfort. I could have talked to my God and my fellow Christians because you well know I cannot talk to this man. Mistress Packerville consulted me about everything that came or left that house. There was not an egg or a sack of flour that passed over that threshold without my knowledge. I am consulted about nothing that matters here. I know it is only contempt which prompts him to question me of my days when he knows they are those of a corpse. So when I think of Mistress Packerville, I think only of this Bible she gave me and the tears she shed when I had to leave her home. I have already left this house and believe me, there are no tears.

  And I truly don’t think you fully understood what I meant about my child. I know that all children must grow up and away from us. But you see, the papers that declare I never owned my child only confirm what I have always felt in my heart. From his birth, he has been his father’s son in flesh and now in spirit. But I tremble daily, for I fear it is even more than that. For fifteen years I have watched them both walk and talk and eat. Believe me, I am not losing my mind but it is not just that he is Luther’s son, he is Luther. And I fear that I have been the innocent vessel for some sort of unspeakable evil. It is clear to me that I have now outlived my usefulness to them, and they are trying to push me out of this house by making me a stranger to my husband and a stranger to my son. And the true horror is that I am becoming, sister, a stranger to myself. You would not recognize the girl you once knew in Tupelo.

  Forgive me, I have gone on too long. I close with affection.

  Luwana

  My Dearest Luwana,

  Pray, take hold of yourself. This senseless prattle about evil is unhealthy for your soul. There is nothing—do you hear me—nothing that is going on in your home that is not repeated in countless other homes around you. Please, venture out and make friends with the other wives. I alone am not enough for you. I know you feel it is impossible because you are despised by the farmers’ wives around you and distrusted by the colored women up on the hill, but for the love of God, try. Go visit and take them flowers and vegetables from your garden this spring. Do something, my dear, because I fear for your sanity.

  Always,

  Luwana

  My Dear Luwana,

  I have not written in a year because I could see that you were growing impatient with me. I knew that to continue in that vein would cause you to tire of writing to me and so I needed to find some way to prove to you that what I said were not the delirious fantasies of a foolish woman. I was determined to do everything within my power to hold your trust. To lose you is to lose the only friend I have.

  Now listen well. I have passed one full year without talking to my husband and my son. I sit with them and take my breakfast in silence, and then I get up from the table and sit in my rocker with my hands folded until we all assemble again at the evening meal. They communicate all their needs to our housekeeper and she fulfills them. Since I have asked for no new clothes or books, it is assumed that I need nothing. At the evening meal, I am always asked the same question: “Has your day gone well, Mrs. Nedeed?” and that only requires a nod of my head. Since I am never questioned any further, I need offer no information. And there has been much talk between them at our supper table this past year. They have made all the arrangements for the boy’s college in Massachusetts, the construction of new cabins on Linden Hills, and it seems as if there is a war threatening between the states which may free all the slaves. But my opinions are never solicited on any of these matters and I volunteered none as I would have in the past. One full year, my sister, I have taken my meals in this manner, spent my days, and retired to my bed at night.

  To the day it is exactly 665 times that I needed to open my mouth to speak—332 times to answer their good morning’s and 333 times to do the same in the evening. It would have been 720 times but this was not a leap year and they were both traveling for a little over a month—32 days in exact reckoning—viewing different schools for the boy. When they returned on the evening of the 33rd day, that gave me the additional good evening.

  I suppose you wonder how I can be so exact. Well, you know the silver hat pin that I keep next to my mirror? I use it to carve a line on my chest and stomach, which I then rub with black ink until the bleeding stops, for each time I am called upon to speak throughout the year. Once the wound has healed, the mark is permanenty affixed and there is no danger of it washing off during my toilet. And I have carefully counted them all just before I sat down to write you.

  Now I ask you, are these the rantings of an insane woman? Would their lives be any different if I had spared myself the breath it took to speak at all? Would the boy be considering another school? Would one more or one less cabin be built up on Linden Hills? At this moment, I can tear open my bodice to show you and the world that it would not.

  The boy leaves for school on the morning train and I am sure that he will wish me good-bye. His father has trained him to be extremely polite. That will be the 666th time that I will be called upon to open my mouth. I shall let you know if he offers more than the “Good-bye, Mother” that I am prepared for. But I warn you not to anticipate it. I plan to place my wrapper on the back of the rocker and hide behind the draperies in the sitting room to see if he will just address the shawl and go on his way. He probably shall. So Luther will leave and I am still left with Luther. Need I say any more, my sister? Just that I fall on my knees and thank God in heaven for send
ing me you.

  Luwana

  There was no answer to that letter. And the remainder of the gold-edged dividers were blank. Even though she leafed all the way through to the Book of Revelations, there was no record of what happened to Luwana Packerville on the morning she made her six hundred and sixty-sixth utterance. The gentle ebbings of grief were building into a flood as she turned the blank pages over again and again, searching for that lost day. That just couldn’t be all. She went back to Luwana Packerville’s last words—“Just that I fall on my knees and thank God in heaven for sending me you.” But it couldn’t end there, and it hadn’t. She had found the end in the beginning: “There can be no God.”

  And the flood finally broke for all those silent mornings filled with the deceptive hum of a thousand conversations that only amounted to pantomime. She put down the Bible, went over to touch the edges of the lace covering her son’s body, and she began to cry. She cried because her beautician knew the shape of the mole behind her ear, because the grocer knew that she hated the taste of lamb, and the mailman could tell anyone that her favorite color of stationery was coral. She sat down in that basement crying as if her life depended on it, because if her life depended on it, the man she had lived with for the last six years wouldn’t be able to tell the executioner as much as that.